With respect to flight, attitude refers generally to the position of an aircraft or spacecraft relative to the horizon or a celestial object, respectively. In the context of aircraft, attitude refers to the angles for pitch, yaw and bank. With regards to spacecraft, attitude refers to the spacecraft's angular position and rotation. In both situations, it is essential to maintain and control proper attitude conditions. Unusual attitude conditions refer to situations where the craft is at an extreme angle or deviation. For example, in aircraft, such situations include having a high pitch angle or being banked at a high angle. When a craft is in an unusual attitude condition, it is important for the flight crew to correct and return the attitude to normal.
In unusual attitude conditions, direct outside views and conformal visual image displays, such as those containing perspective view backgrounds, are not always effective ways of providing clear cues of attitude upset information for a variety of reasons. In particular, perspective view backgrounds with 3-dimensional terrain, runways, etc. can make it difficult for flight crews to ascertain the correct horizon line. However, these displays greatly aid flight crews during normal flight and removal of perspective view backgrounds can distract or even startle flight crews when taking proper recovery actions.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for a display which minimizes distractions to a flight crew during unusual attitude conditions.